NHL Rumors: The Pittsburgh Penguins Likely Thinking a Claude Giroux Return if They Trade Jake Guentzel

Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – The Battle of Ontario is Back, Baby episode on

** NHLRumors.com transcription

“Guentzel. The thing about Pittsburgh is, like someone said to me, you know, (Penguins GM Kyle) Dubas, right? I said yes, I do. I’ve met him once or twice before. And they said you know that he’s got, he’s done his research.

What did Claude Giroux get? A first-rounder and Owen Tippett. Now don’t forget Florida was kind of down on Tippett at the time, but he’s turned out to be a great find for Philly.

If Giroux had gone to Colorado, it was a first-rounder and I think (Justin) Barron. And so it was a first and a good prospect in both those cases. Look at the Tyler Toffoli deal. When Tyler Toffoli got traded from Calgary to New Jersey. He was traded for (Igor) Sharongovich, which was turned out to be a really good pick up and a third-rounder.

Now, obviously, Dubis is going to look at the Giroux deal as opposed to the Sharon…(correcting himself), the Toffoli deal because the Giroux price was a little bit higher. But Dubas is sitting there, he’s saying look, ‘if you want Guentzel, I want the Giroux deal.’

So he can wait. Like everyone’s looking at Guentzel and the teams who want him they know whether Kyle Dubas waits. A really tough weekend for the Penguins. Bad loss in Minnesota. No points against Winnipeg.

So you know like look, like I think Dubas is prepared to let this play out because he knows the comparables and everybody else knows the comparables too. To me it just is simply a question of, when does Dubis decide if he’s going to do it? Now if Pittsburgh’s in the race, I still think he does it. but you know, as I say the math isn’t very good for them. But I think everybody knows like that’s what the Penguins are going to be asking for when the time comes for Guentzel.

Now, the other thing to Jeff that happens here is there’s going to be some teams who say, I’m not, I can’t either I’m not or I can’t pay that price for any of those players. So they go and search what else they want. But those are kind of the four guys that the people who have that want or willing to pay that price are waiting on.”